Wrapping up the semester

I feel like I have no idea where the last four months went? This semester has absolutely flown by! And if the spring semester is anything like my last one, it will to! I can't believe I am now three-fourths of the way finished with grad school. It's been absolutely insane and there is still a long way to go! I'm really looking forward to moving forward with my thesis next semester as well as exploring a new medium: screenprinting! I think it will be really interesting to see how the thought process behind that informs my work. 

In the mean time I have a couple images to share with all of you! Mostly thus far, my retelling of The Little Mermaid has lived within the numerous filled pages of my sketchbooks. I decided I needed to stop floundering around with sketches and figuring out what I want this world to look like and just bite the bullet and create an image! So I created a spread where the little merprince is making his deal with the sea witch for the magic to turn him into a human. There is space for the text on both pages, hence the large open spaces. I have my final critique on Thursday and this could go over horribly and the imagery of next semester may look nothing like this, but I'd love opinions regardless. =)

Also I have a couple more patterns to share within my under the sea collection. Designing imagery for prints and patterns is something I have definitely really come to enjoy in my time here at school, and it is an avenue I will continue to explore both next semester and upon graduation.

I hope you are all having safe travels during this holiday season, and if I don't post before then, have a merry Christmas y'all! Best wishes!

Joshua

Almost there!

The semester is coming to a close y'all and I'm busy busy busy! I just wanted to share these with you to remind you all that I am alive, haha. There will be more to come soon, and in the mean time I hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season! Best wishes!

Joshua

Hello all! I hope you are all keeping warm as the winter months set in. I know I'm having trouble with that haha. Well, the fall semester of my final year in graduate school is coming quickly to a close, and while I am slammed with work, I wanted to share some snippets of what I'm working on. 

Firstly, in my Markets for Children class I am wrapping up the details on the circus pattern series and working on a new undersea themed series. You can definitely expect to see some mermaids with these! And speaking of mermaids... I'm really excited about my thesis story I have settled upon. I will be retelling The Little Mermaid in the era of the Vikings and the story will actually be retold about a little mer prince. Below are some studies of the mer prince as well as the son of the Viking chieftain.

Lastly! The lovely Sarah Jacoby and I have started a new tumblr with some of our fellow grad school friends featuring fun, quick little illustrations of animals in clothing. So be sure to go follow Animals Outfitted! It's still very new, but there are some really talented folks involved and there will be plenty of adorable imagery to keep up with. 

So now I must return to the onslaught of work that awaits, but I look forward to sharing more with all of you guys very soon! Until then, best wishes!

Joshua

Some sketches

Hey guys! I just thought I would share a few little studies I have done for some things that are going on with my new thesis. I'm finally getting into a good stride, and I've figured out a lot of what I am looking to accomplish with this body of work. I'm very excited about what I have planned thus far, and I look forward to sharing more with y'all very soon!

Best wishes,

Joshua

Progress

Hello everyone! I hope you are all having a lovely fall thus far. There is a lot currently going on with my new thesis as well as my Children's Market class, but unfortunately, not much that I am ready to share. I did think it would be nice to share some in progress things will all of you in the mean time however! My next series of prints and patterns is surrounding the them of Enchanted Woods and some of the work thus far is below. I'm really not sold on the mushroom pattern as is, and while everything needs some tinkering, you can definitely expect to see something different with those. 

Until next time, stay warm and best wishes!

~Joshua

Amethyst

I have been obsessed with Brianne Drouhard's Amethyst Princess of Gemworld since the moment I saw a preview of it for DC Nation. I've been meaning to doodle her for a while, and after a silly twitter conversation with Brianne yesterday about the fate of Gemworld, I decided it was time to. I hope y'all enjoy it =)

~Joshua

Big Top Fun!

As previously mentioned, one of my courses this fall is a class in Children's Markets. For the class I am doing three separate series of patterns and prints, and I have just completed my first which I have titled Big Top Fun! These were so much fun and really energizing to work on! Actually in the process of this, I discovered that I really wanted to shift the focus of my thesis. While I still very much have a love of animation and still hold intentions to pursue my Wish Academy project, I have decided to center my thesis around children's publishing markets instead. Publishing has always been my primary interest in the world of illustration, and after a lot of thought and multiple meetings, I decided that this would be a better route for the course of my thesis year in graduate school. The project is still new and open ended at the moment, but I am excited to explore where this road takes me and I look forward to sharing the details with all of you as they come to me! So for now, enjoy my series of circus fun!

Until next time, best wishes!

Joshua

Thesis year of grad school

My summer of silence has ended! (Yay) And I apologize for the long hiatus. I was out of town for most of the summer and most of the work I was doing involved writing and research for my thesis, as has this past month which has been the first of my final year of graduate school! (yay again!) 

I am now, thankfully, past a lot of the prep work mumbo jumbo and I'm finally getting into the meat of my work. My primary thesis involves world-building, design and storytelling for a pitch that I am creating for a children's television show. If you recall my previous sketches on this blog for a project titled "Wish Academy", that was kind of a launching point for what became the actual world of my thesis. I'm not going to go into much detail here and now, but I am very excited about it and I can't wait to share the visuals of this world as I explore it extensively over the next several months! 

Aside from my main thesis, I am also taking a course that is basically a second, mini thesis that lasts only for one semester and is focused solely in children's markets. For this I'm creating a body of work that will encompass three separate series of patterns and prints for children's merchandise and apparel. The first of these series is my wacky circus! It's still in progress, but you can expect the complete Wacky Circus series by the end of next week, so I look forward to sharing that with you as well! Below are some sketches and in progress pieces for the series, but I was dying to share something on the blog so you all would know I am alive and working! It's good to be back, and now that the ball is rolling with my thesis, you can expect that to be the last major hiatus =)

Until next time, best wishes!

~Joshua

Hello Summer!

Well I am proud and excited to say I wrapped up my first year of graduate school just a couple short weeks ago! It was a crazy ride, but my end of year review went really well and I'm extremely excited to keep moving forward with what I've learned and the new directions I continue to be moving toward. I'm most excited to dive into animation next year. I think that is going to be a really wonderful experience as I've always had such a strong interest in the field. Actually, that was my original major at SCAD before I ran off to be friends with Peter Pan at Disney World. When I came back, I had a difficult time readjusting to reality and switched my major to help me cope haha. I wouldn't change that for the world though. I love the world of illustration and I'm glad to be a part of it. Plus, there's no rule against doing both, and that's really what the MFA in Illustration Practice program is about: breaking boundaries between illustration and other fields.

Anyway, I have a busy couple of weeks ahead filled with drawing and a lot of planning for the next year. The second year program is a self guided thesis and I plan to focus on visual development for animation as well as children's product markets. I'll be pushing both my Wish Academy and Magical Girl Battle Royale projects to completed states and working on my publishing portfolio simultaneously. I'm looking forward to sharing all of this with you guys, and of course, I would love any feedback along the way! In the mean time though, have some doodles!

Until next time, best wishes!

~Joshua

Magical Girl Battle Royale!

For my independent project this semester, I began the early stages of concepting for a game: Magical Girl Battle Royale! I was so excited to combine two of my favorite things: magical heroines and ultimate fights to the death! While I might leave the "to the death" part out of the actual production, I'm really excited to continue moving forward with this and plan to have a complete board/card game hybrid by the end of this year! There is still a lot of opportunity for growth and change, but for now, I present you with the first girls of Magical Girl Battle Royale!

With only one week left before my year end review, things are pretty hectic here, but I still have a few more projects to share before my first year in grad school is all said and done. So until then, best wishes!

~Joshua

Birds and Fancy Things!

So I am way late on this blog post, as these patterns have been floating around the internet elsewhere for nearly two months haha. I had jumped right from these into several other projects, so they kind of fell to the back of my mind. Better late than never I suppose! The theme I ran with for these was "Birds and Fancy Things", so please enjoy the silliness. =)

My first year at grad school is now coming to a close and my end of year review is coming up in just two short weeks! It's been an amazing experience thus far and I'll be sure to do an extensive post on the year once my review is over and I can breathe again haha. Until next time, best wishes!

~Joshua

Unicorn lions and feather girls

Not too much to report at the moment, just plugging along with my consistant workload. Despite my constant pursuit of the holy grail that is a good nights sleep, I'm really loving this just non stop work mode I'm in. I'm really enthused about all of my projects, and my views on illustration and design are rapidly evolving. 

I believe I previously mentioned that we recently had a patterning workshop with the amazing Julia Rothman here in the MICA ILP MFA program. I have an entire collection in the works, but I really enjoyed my sketch from the workshop so I decided to bring that to final. 

Additionally, I have an upcoming assignment that requires depicting an obscure fictional land. While it is not the one that I have chosen, I was fascinated by the concept of feather island. The inhabitants are all women who instead of hair have feathers and are birthed from exotic bird eggs. Their queen is born from the phoenix egg and therefore is ever reborn. The lowly citizen come from furry caterpillar eggs and therefore have wiry hair instead of feathers. This is definitely a world I plan to explore more in my spare time, but I took some time to doodle these lovely ladies in the meant time. 

That's about it for now, so until next time, best wishes!

~Josh

We're not in Kansas anymore!

The Wizard of Oz (along with most fairy tales and stories from my childhood) holds a very dear place in my heart. Most importantly, I associate the story with my late grandmother who played a large role in my life and really helped to pave the yellow brick road to my artistic career. That being said, it's been something I have been wanting to address for a while, and I was really excited when I finally got the opportunity to do so.

I really find myself enjoying working digitally these days. I have several other pieces on the horizon, a few of which are traditional, so I am excited to see how my recent work in this format will speak to my hand with traditional media. I look forward to sharing this with you all, and until next time, Best Wishes!

~Joshua

Tarot cards again

The Queen of Wands

Judgement

So for my latest assignment in digital, we were randomly given two tarot cards and had to choose one to illustrate. Being a grad student, I decided it would behoove me to go ahead and do both. I definitely had a lot of fun with both of these, and I'm excited to continue to explore more digital work. For those of you unfamiliar with the meanings of these cards, you should check out Biddy Tarot, it's a great site that has a pretty detailed account of each card. 

Interestingly, I've done a tarot assignment before. It was in my digital illustration course during the first quarter of my junior year at SCAD. I actually think one of which was the Queen of Wands. Unfortunately, I think I lost the files on my old laptop, but I would love to show you all a comparison. From what I recall, these would be a major improvement haha. 

Coming next, I'll have my reinterpretation of The Wizard of Oz with some sample publishing work. I'm really excited to plow through that work this weekend. Until then, best wishes!

~Josh 

Happy Valentine's Day!

Here's a quick little doodle I did for my good childhood friend for Valentine's day. We've been "married" status on facebook for the past four years to save each other from those awkward facebook relationship status moments haha, and we usually celebrate valentine's day and our "anniversary" as well for fun. Since we've been friends since we were four, she's also probably my longest running Valentine =).

Anyway, I have a lot of other projects coming up on my front including: Space Oz, a couple tarot designs and some patterning stuff which I'm pretty excited about. I look forward to sharing all of this with you guys in the coming weeks! Until then, best wishes!

~Josh

I'm going digital!

So I'm two weeks into my second semester of grad school, and it is already busier than the end of the last haha. It's all totally worth it though, and I'm really loving my classes and projects this semester! We have an amazing unit coming up with licensing and patterning with Julia Rothman that I'm really looking forward too. So far though, I think the highlight of my course load is my digital course with Kali. I'm feel that I've already gotten a great deal out of it and we still have plenty yet to go. My first piece for the course was an editorial illustration with the prompt "giving up something in order to gain".

This image was my solution to the problem. I really love my large, floppy hats, and the more decorative the better! We also did a really quick, fun character design collab to prepare us for our next assignment where one person made a silhouette and the other completed the design. I wanted to share it with you guys because my good friend Lisa Perrin and I worked on this together, and she's really talented so you should all go check out her work! 

(I did the silhouette and Lisa did the sweet line details!)

And to wrap up the post, I did a quick doodle of my Sugar Rush Racer self again to try out something a bit different while working digitally. 

I have to say that I'm definitely excited about using digital media again, and I think finding a balance between my traditional and digital techniques will really help to evolve my work. So in the words of Walt Disney, I'll just KEEP MOVING FORWARD!

Until next time, best wishes!

~Josh

P.S. did anyone catch the Digimon reference in the post's title, or am I just an uber nerd?

Dorothy Gale Redesigns

These are some rough sketches for a current project in my Book Illustration course. We had to take a well known character and redesign them in five new ways. Next we will be selecting one and move forward with a completed illustration. I'm not sure which I'm going to go with yet. Though I'm drawn to the space Dorothy most, I'm already doing so many other space girl projects that I think I should branch out a bit haha.

~Josh

Happy New Year! ...one month late

Hey everyone! I hope everyone has had an amazing first month of 2013 as well as an amazing holidays! I apologize for my blogger absence over the past several weeks. With final critiques and a much too long winter holiday break, I was a bit worn out. For more frequent updates though, be sure to follow my tumblr! I post work much quicker there and with much less dialogue, so if you're only following me for the artwork, that's where to go! For those who like a bit more content, this is where I will continue on with that.

So my spring semester began this week and I'm already neck deep in work, which is how I like to be quite frankly. Alongside my primary MFA studio course, I am also in a book course with the amazing Jaime Zollars and a digital course with Kali Ciesemier. I'm really excited about both courses and I think each will help me put together some great content in my evolving portfolio. I have to say that as time goes on, I am consistently more enthusiastic about my decision to come to grad school.

In addition to my graduate course load, i have several personal projects that I am anxious to work on and share with you all in the coming months. For now though I have a few recent images and sketches to share with you all and I look forward to an abundance of new work to post as 2013 continues!

Until next time, best wishes!

~Josh